Category: DPRK Government

Kim Il Sung still casts a spell over North Koreans

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Kim Il Sung, the founder of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, was revered like a god in life — and after it. Two decades later, mythmaking is as important as ever for Kim’s grandson, dictator Kim Jong Un, who has just led the official memorial to the Great Leader.

North Korean propaganda casts the Kims as protectors of a country under siege. School children learn that Kim Il Sung was an exceptional warrior who, while camping at the base of Mount Paektu with his comrades, defeated a force of Japanese colonialists. He later repelled the imperialist Americans in the 1950–53 Korean War.

According to official history, his heir, Kim Jong Il, was born at the base of the same scared mountain, and the birth heralded by a rainbow. According to North Korean hagiography, Kim Jong Il grew up to become a master tactician, writer and filmmaker. Legend has it he shot 11 holes-in-one in his first ever round of golf.

Young Kim Jong Un prefers to bask in his grandfather’s, rather than his father’s, glow. South Korean analysts believe the young leader consciously emulates his grandfather’s look and public persona. Whereas his father avoided the public, Kim Jong Un, like his grandfather, is often photographed among, even touching, his subjects.

An actual conflict would almost certainly cost him his kingdom. But young Kim knows that for North Korea to survive he must convince his people that the enemy is at the gate — and that he, alone, can stop them. Grandad would have approved.

[TIME]

Kim Jong-un’s siblings in top posts of North Korean government

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North Korea is more than ever a Kim family business, with leader Kim Jong-un’s older brother Jong-chol playing a key role in ensuring the regime’s longevity, while his younger sister Yeo-jong manages its coffers.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s older brother, Kim Jong-chol (left) and sister, Kim Yeo-jong (right)

Kim Jong-chol, who is rarely spotted in public, is rumored to be in charge of Kim Jong-un’s security. There are claims that he led the operation to arrest Ri Yong-ha and Jang Su-gil, two close confidants of executed eminence grise Jang Song-taek, in December last year. And there is speculation that Jong-chol played a key role in bringing about recent negotiations with Japanese government officials to mend ties amid growing international isolation.

Kim Yeo-jong is reportedly in charge of an agency known as Room 38 under the Workers Party which manages the regime’s coffers and businesses that earn foreign currency. The agency used to be overseen by Jang’s widow, Kim Kyong-hui, who is also Kim Jong-un’s aunt, but Yeo-jong gained control after Jang was executed.

One bureau in the agency exports herbal medicine, rare plants and high-quality lumber, while another oversees a glitzy new department store in Pyongyang as well as 124 other department stores across North Korea. Due to Kim Yeo-jong’s influential position, business is booming, and modern coffee shops in these stores are apparently packed with customers.

North Korea experts say Kim Jong-un, who used to depend heavily on his uncle and aunt, feels he is safer entrusting his siblings with influential jobs.

His half sister Sol-song also apparently holds a key post. Kim Sol-song is the eldest daughter of former leader Kim Jong-il’s second wife, Kim Yong-suk, and majored in economics and politics at Kim Il-sung University. She has served in the Politburo as well as other key posts including the propaganda department. Ken Gause of CNA Corporation said recently that Sol-song has taken charge of the Workers Party secretariat, which would put her at the apex of the organization that controls information flow.

Only Kim’s older half-brother Kim Jong-nam was sidelined in the power struggle early on and lives in lavish exile.

[Chosun Ilbo]

North Korea holding fewer political prisoners?

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The number of political prisoners in North Korea is significantly lower than previously thought, according to South Korea’s latest white paper on the Stalinist country’s human rights situation.

The Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), South Korea’s state-run research institute, estimates the number of political prisoners in the North to be somewhere between 80,000 and 120,000. That is a drastic drop from previous estimates of 150,000 to 200,000.

Based on in-depth interviews of some 240 North Korean defectors, the white paper noted that one of the six prison camps in the North, Camp 22 in North Hamgyeong Province, was shut down in May 2012. In addition, Camp 18 in South Pyongan Province downsized from holding some 190,000 prisoners to around 4,000 after being relocated to North Pyongan Province.

The institute indicated, however, that the shrinking number of prison camps and prisoners is due to rise in the death toll from forced labor and rules that ban childbirth inside the camps, not because of shift in Pyongyang’s stance.

The white paper said public executions of those charged with drug-related crimes increased in 2012 and the following year. The North Korean government reformed its criminal codes two years ago and stipulated those involved in drug trafficking and smuggling would face the death penalty.

The report comes as the special U.N. investigator for human rights in North Korea said Thursday that the world body must do more to hold Pyongyang accountable for abuses of its own citizens. Marzuki Darusman said the U.N. Security Council is the only body that can refer perpetrators to the International Criminal Court.

[VoA]

UN monitor urges China to bring North Korea to heel

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UN monitor Marzuki Darusman on Wednesday urged China to bring ally North Korea to heel over its record of systemic human rights abuse, likening Beijing’s clout to that of Washington with Israel.

He told reporters, “This is the kind of denial that the United States has, that it has no hold on Israel,” said Darusman, a former chief prosecutor of Indonesia.

Darusman was part of a UN-mandated inquiry team that earlier this year issued a damning 400-page report detailing endemic abuses by North Korea. It spotlighted rape, torture and enslavement, saying they could amount to crimes against humanity and comparing them to the actions of Nazi Germany.

The inquiry team has called for North Korea to be hauled before the International Criminal Court — potentially to prosecute dictator Kim Jong-un and other regime figures. But referral to the ICC requires approval by the UN Security Council, where China wields a veto.

Barred from North Korea by Pyongyang, the UN monitors have interviewed defectors in South Korea and other countries, and used satellite imagery to build an idea of North Korea’s network of concentration camps.

North Korea has dubbed the witnesses “human scum” and, in regular attacks at the UN Human Rights Council, charged that probes are part of a “vicious, hostile policy” piloted by Washington.

Darusman blasted that position. “It’s a convenient facade that the North Koreans are adopting, by continuing with their denials but at the same time seeming to engage by being present at the UN Human Rights Council sessions and responding to the findings by continuing with the theme that all the findings are fabricated,” he said.

[AFP]

North Korea warns against UN human rights office in South Korea

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North Korea warned of “strong” action against a UN office which will be set up in South Korea to monitor human rights violations in the communist country.

The North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea slammed South Korea for accepting a request from the Geneva-based Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to open a field office in Seoul, which a spokesman labeled “an anti-DPRK (North Korea) plot-breeding organization aimed at launching aggression and bringing down the social system” in the North.

Seoul decided in late May to allow the establishment of the UN office, a move welcomed by rights bodies as a public manifestation of international concern over the state of human rights in North Korea. In a resolution following a report by UN investigators, the council in March condemned “systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations” in the North.

The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva has expressed hope that the new office will improve the efficiency of investigations into human rights violations in the North, and could even reduce their frequency and intensity.

[AFP]

North Korea-Japan deals serves both ends

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Both Japan and North Korea have their own reasons for engaging with each other, separate agendas that led to this week’s landmark agreement on the abduction issue between the two countries.

Tokyo wants tangible progress on the long-standing issue, as abductees’ family members are growing old. North Korea, meanwhile, has become increasingly isolated in the international community, prompting it to turn to Japan for help.

During talks between senior government officials of the two countries in Stockholm this week, North Korea agreed to fully investigate the fate of Japanese nationals abducted by its agents and suspected abductees, while Japan pledged to lift some of its sanctions against North Korea.

North Korea has agreed that the probe will cover not only the 12 people recognized by the Japanese government as abduction victims, including Megumi Yokota, but also about 470 “specially designated missing persons” who are believed to have been abducted by Pyongyang.

Despite the much-heralded agreement, however, it is still open to question whether Pyongyang will follow through.

[The Yomiuri Shimbun]

Predictions for Kim Jong Un’s North Korea

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The Chosun Ilbo and the Ilmin International Relations Institute at Korea University questioned 135 North Korea experts — 86 from overseas, including the U.S., China, Japan, Russia and Europe — and 49 from South Korea.

Almost half the experts predict that Kim Jong Un will consolidate his grip on power within the next three to five years, but about one-third predict he will face increasing internal instability. But the chances of a coup d’état or regime collapse are seen as slim.

Asked to guess how much longer the Kim Jong-un regime will last, over one-third said five to 10 years, and one-third 10 to 20 years.

Consequently about half expect reunification to happen in the next 10 to 20 years, and one-fifth between five to 10 years from now.

Most say that an internal power struggle in the North would be the most likely agent to trigger a regime collapse in the North. Only one-third see economic failure as a more likely cause, and very few a public uprising.

The majority of experts believe that the North Korean regime will press ahead with reforms at the same timid rate, while one-fifth expect them to speed up. Yet there is little confidence that the reforms will help improve the North Korean economy.

Almost half of the experts feel it is China rather than the U.S. that holds the key to improving the North Korean economy, while some believe Washington’s and Beijing’s policies will have an equal impact. About equal numbers forecast that North Korea’s economic dependency on China will remain the same or get worse.

Reportedly executed North Korean singer makes surprise TV comeback

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A North Korean singer said to be Kim Jong-un’s former girlfriend and reported to have been executed by firing squad last year has appeared on state television. Hyon Song-Wol was shown delivering a speech at a rally of national art workers in the capital Pyongyang on Friday.

The 31-year-old North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, and the performer were said to have been teenage lovers but had been forced to break up by Kim Jong-il, Mr Kim’s father and predecessor.

The singer was reported to have been caught up in palace intrigue last summer having incurred the displeasure of Ri Sol-ju, Mr Kim’s wife. (Shown in photo below, sporting a new, shorter haircut.)

Undated photo released by KCNA on May 11, 2014 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (front C) and his wife Ri Sol Ju (front L) inspecting an Air Force Combat Flight Contest.

In August, Chosun Ilbo, a South Korean newspaper with close links to its country’s intelligence services, reported that Hyon and 11 other well-known performers had been caught making a sex tape and executed.  The reappearance of Hyon came after months of speculation about whether she was alive.

[National Post]

Uncharacteristic apology after building collapse in Pyongyang

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In an uncharacteristic step by the North Korean government, officials have made a public apology after a building collapse in Pyongyang reportedly led to the death of hundreds of people.

Officials including the country’s Minister of People’s Security offered “profound consolation and apology” to the family members of those that died in the 24-storey building collapse on Tuesday.

The Minister of People’s Security, Choe Pu-il, said that his poor supervision had led to the “unimaginable accident” and that he had “repented” after the accident. He added that “he failed to find out factors that can put at risk the lives and properties of the people and to take thorough-going measures.”

Reports also say that the leader of the secretive Communist state, Kim Jong-un, had been deeply affected by the accident and that he had “sat up all night, feeling painful” when he had heard about the accident.

North Korean authorities rarely give coverage to incidents that might lead to negative public perceptions, however in this case, not only did KCNA, North Korea’s state news channel, show images of the collapse, they also showed footage of the rescue effort and statements of apology from government officials.

[The Independent]

US Envoy on low prospects of restarting North Korean nuclear talks

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Glyn Davies, the Obama administration’s special envoy for North Korea policy, suggested Washington could accept “reversible steps” from North Korea on denuclearization in order to jump-start frozen negotiations, which also involve China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

He emphasized, however, that Pyongyang could only return to the long-paralyzed six-party process if it accepted the “fundamental premise” that the negotiations were focused on the permanent shuttering of its nuclear weapons program.

“Davies’ answer suggests that if the six-party talks were to begin, the first actions the U.S. and its partners would demand would be aimed at limits that curb the D.P.R.K.’s nuclear and missile potential,” said Daryl Kimball, Arms Control Association executive director, in an email.

A stillborn U.S-North Korea agreement reached on Leap Day 2012 involved such a promise of a testing moratorium; Pyongyang was seen to quickly break faith with Washington when it weeks later unsuccessfully attempted to send a rocket into space.

The six-party talks format focuses on rewarding North Korea for its phased denuclearization with timed infusions of economic assistance and security agreements; the last round of negotiations took place in late 2008. Since that time, Pyongyang has detonated multiple atomic devices, carried out a number of apparent long-range ballistic missile tests, revealed a uranium enrichment capacity and restarted a mothballed plutonium-production reactor. Most recently, the world has been waiting to see if the North will make good on its repeated threats of conducting a fourth nuclear test.

Davies painted an overall dim picture of the current state of the nuclear impasse with the North: “The fact that they’re not interested in resolving the cases of Americans who have been imprisoned in North Korea tells you something about their current interest in going back to multilateral diplomacy.”

“This new leader has done us a favor, in a back-handed fashion, of making it quite clear that he has no intention of meaningfully denuclearizing, and that presents a problem. But it also is a clarifying moment,” said Davies, who formerly served as U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

[National Journal]